Photo Hold'em | The Championship Round Explained

Apologies for the long delay. I've been spread pretty thin lately. This post will serve several purposes. First, we'll name the 2 players who'll be advancing to the championships. Wow, that sounds important -- "the championships". I never thought I'd be presiding over any "championships". Anyhow, next, I'll try to explain how we're going to run this last round, as it will work a little differently than all of the other rounds. After that, there's a couple random update items.

I. The First Possibly-Annual TRL Photo Hold'em Championships game will be played between:

DARIN MCQUOID & BARBORA HOLLAN

TRL wishes to offer massive gratitude to ALL of the players who ponied up & got involved in this little experiment .. & who put up with all our BS & procrastination. You guys not only kept the blog alive with your amazing photos during our downtime, but you actually helped us grow this thing into a fun little online community. So for that we salute you. The open invite stands for y'all to submit any future photos or stories or whatever if you want a place to dump them online -- y'all are family.

II. Here's how the finals will go down. Each player will play and be judged on their "hand", 3 cards of which must be previously played cards, and 2 of which will be new cards. Once we have the players' submissions, I will drop a post showing the 3 previously played cards in each hand but the 2 new new cards will remain face-down. We'll then "turn over" the new cards one at a time & watch the hand grow. Something like that anyway .. trust me, it'll be fun.

But wait, there's more! Since we have 3 sponsor prizes lined up, we're gonna have a battle for 3rd place -- the Evan vs. Evan DEATHMATCH. These dorks will each have to play a 3-card hand, 1 card of which will be previously played, & 2 new. Get it? Don't ask why, just nod your head & blink your eyes a lot.

So, players, please get your submissions in to me asap & I'll build it out.

III. UPDATER: Reports from up Chris T up north are that Bellingham's best backyard creek, Clearwater Creek, is clear of dangerous wood.


IV: UPDATER: Today is/was Daniel's birthday. In honor of the day & the man, Grace & a bunch of other Ashevillagers & friends of D's threw a Birthday Eddy Party on that one creek near there. More info on that can be found on LVM-TV's Clip of the Week .. You'll either have to suffer through several minutes of me blabbin' incessantly about nonsense (& watch me gracefully portage a rowdy class II rapid) .. or just fast forward to the end. (I love how they're building the drama & developing the story line for us: "Do The Range Life have a shot at completing the IR Vacation To Hell?" Dang, I dunno! Those guys are kinda hacks. I'd say they're a risky bet!) Anyway, I'm looking forward to hearing some stories & seeing some vid from the Birthday Eddy Party. Wish I coulda been there ..

V. UPDATER: Our good pal Pretty Nicky did some South American travel recently as a follow-up to an earlier trip he'd done down there. He & his buddies are involved in some river stewardship projects down there & blogging it. The Source Loop is top notch writing & top notch photography .. Seriously, go there now .. and be sure to go to the Gold Link archives on the sidebar for lots more good stuff.

VI. FOTOS: couple shots from this weekends outings with Dubside & Bryan on Saturday, and with Kyle, Scott, Ammen & Chris on Sunday:


Dubside


Juiceman

AllDay Wave

Ammen

Crew in the cave

Tilton gorge